Progressive Path from Virtualization to Containerized Tech Autonomy

Cofco Trust previously deployed VMware TKG on SmartX ECP (powered by VMware vSphere) to support containerized development, testing, and production workloads. Driven by changes in VMware’s licensing and service models, stricter regulatory requirements for data security and business continuity, and the ongoing evolution of Information Technology Application Innovation (ITAI), the company aims to build upon its stable operations by expanding its technological autonomy from virtualization to the container platform level. This strategic shift is designed to reduce external dependencies and ensure full control over core technical infrastructure.

Having established a CI/CD platform, container registry, and the Rancher management platform, the new container platform must meet the following requirements:

• Compatibility: Ensure full compatibility with the existing container management platform and related components.
• Stability: Support both development/testing and production environments simultaneously, maintaining high reliability under heavy workloads.
• Seamless Migration: Provide standard Kubernetes cluster capabilities to enable the smooth and seamless migration of applications from the legacy VMware TKG environment.

During the functional validation phase, SKS capabilities were comprehensively tested on SmartX ECP (based on ELF), covering dozens of items including functionality, performance, plugin integration, and reliability. Results indicated that SKS matches TKG in Kubernetes cluster lifecycle management, monitoring, and O&M, specifically demonstrating equivalent capabilities in automated O&M, rolling updates, log management, and fault diagnosis. Furthermore, SKS supports native Kubernetes APIs and is compatible with existing management and monitoring tools, enabling an efficient and seamless transition from Tanzu to SKS.

During the business active-active validation phase, two independent SmartX ECP clusters running SKS were deployed across dual data centers. Kubernetes workload clusters were created at each site to validate UAT services. Utilizing CloudTower for unified management of the hyper-converged and Kubernetes clusters across both sites, the stability and business continuity performance under a multi-site architecture were further verified.

Following successful validation, the company utilized SmartX ECP (powered by native virtualization ELF) to host virtual machines and SKS for containerized workloads, achieving unified management across dual data centers and multiple clusters through CloudTower. With the establishment of this autonomous private cloud resource pool, resource delivery time has been reduced from days to hours, and infrastructure O&M complexity has decreased by approximately 30%. The solution provides stable support for high-level databases and critical applications while meeting the elastic scaling requirements of both development/testing and production environments.